In the Gardens the last of the decorations are being taken down. An upside-down Santa’s face leans against a chipped two-dimensional reindeer. A child screams from its fur-filled buggy. Bright yellow men are carrying, just, a slab of decking as wide as it is long. For some reason there are seven men on one side and four on the other. Nobody watching is surprised when their path, from a straight line towards the gate, becomes a graceful, then lurching, arc into an iron-railed corner.
Edinburgh
Excuse me
“Excuse-”
David put on his happy-to-help-tourists face, ready for the next words, where is castle, old town, queue for tattoo….
“- me pal, where’s North Bridge, the methadone clinic ken, the chemist?”
David wasn’t ready for this. It was August, after all, season of upside-down maps and disbelief at the steepness of stairs. He checked his wallet, phone. Idiot.
“Well, this one up at the top of the hill’s parallel to the Bridges so if you go up here and turn left and then right the next one’s the Bridges but I don’t know if the clin- the chemist is left or right -”
But the two men were gone, fast on thin legs, across the road through the traffic.
David breathed deeply and turned back towards the Grassmarket. Now, where were the tourists in distress?
The Push
Work of a moment on the crowded pavement. Bus arriving, tripping, flailing, bus arriving. Stop. “No, I don’t want a flyer, thanks.”
St Andrew’s Square in the sun (2)
A woman with a night-black ponytail strides across the square, one arm cradling a ginger-headed baby, the other hand holding a parasol. The shade falls carefully on the babe. The woman squints as she passes the young boy crosslegged on the grass. His gaze, and face, follow the crane’s reaching sweep across the sky and he gently overbalances, a portrait of surprise. Now, lying on his back as the grass tickles his ear, he listens to the tick-ticking of the sculpture students chip-chipping at their stone. Tourists, each with two bags, stop heavily by the sculptors and smile. Their holiday is beginning.
St Andrew’s Square in the sun
Dusty-haired men lie on hi-vis vests on the grass, their hard hats an orgy of albino tortoises. A woman in silver court shoes is distraught as she drips low-cal mayonnaise down her top; the couple next to her are too engrossed in each other to notice. People wonder who that dog belongs to; and why it is wearing a muzzle. Others wonder if that smell can be what they think it is or whether someone’s lotion is cannabis-laced. A man frowns but continues writing in his small black notebook as the woman behind him reads out her credit card number and security code. He looks around guiltily, trying to say with his expression that he is a writer and he was taking notes before she even sat down. He puts the notebook down on the grass, face-up, so that she can see what he has written. She does not look round. He has no choice but to leave. As he stands, he feels his face burning. Perhaps it is the sun.
Postcard from Edinburgh, March
Soon the sleeping elephant will shake the snow from its head
Soon the sun breaks through
Soon Spring
Soon
Snow
Working in an office in Edinburgh in August
High Street flyerers! Your attention please.
Look out for the man with a briefcase, and madness in his eyes.
He is going to a meeting. He does not wish to be disturbed.
Do not approach him; do not approach him.
Do not paint his face or tickle his chin.
Do not offer him a two for one.
He is going to a meeting. He does not wish to be disturbed.
Inside he carries his sadness. He should be having fun with you.
But he is carrying his briefcase and there is madness in his eyes.
He is going to a meeting. He does not wish to be disturbed.
Halfmoon hanging
Halfmoon hanging in the daylit sky;
wakening sun warming morning blood;
Edinburgh early summer awaits.
Ah, Dunedin summer days!
Ah, Dunedin summer days!
At four in the morn the sweet cry of the gull,
The snappy smack of fist on cheekbone as the last revellers chatter and twinkle their way back home,
Backslapping, snappy smacking, gulls crying,
Oh, my Edinburgh days.
Arthur’s Seat
Hundreds of years; thousands and more. People had been circling the old volcano since before memory began, rhythmically at first, and expecting a consequence.
Now, of course, all that had been forgotten, and people walked, or jogged, or ran for fun. They ran alone, or jogged in pairs, or walked, and stopped, and photographed, in groups. And didn’t expect the consequence. And then, one day, by chance, by mishap or – and we must only hope not – by definite design, the necessary number circled at the necessary speed for the necessary time. And those inside awoke.
They awoke and shook themselves and looked around themselves in the dark, not seeing but knowing, being called, being called, one and all together.
They tore through the walls of the old volcano using hands and nails and bleeding fingers. They tore them through with ferocious speed until they were within a long arm’s length from the crust, the grass where people lay and slept and picnicked and laughed and watched the walkers circling. And saw the walkers stopping and laughing and clapping one another on the back.
And then the ones inside stopped too, a long arm’s length from the world, as if a silent trumpet call had sounded, they stopped, heads tilted towards the silent sound, listening in the silence and the breathing. They stopped and then returned to where they had slept, dirt-faced, red-toothed, and lay and slept again.
But now the old volcano wall was thinner; much, much thinner. And a year on from that day the walk would begin again.
simonsalento 